The Kuala Lumpur Major Qualifiers and Preview

The Kuala Lumpur Major will be the first Dota Pro Circuit Major of the 2018 – 2019 competitive season. As the name suggests, the event is scheduled to take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between November 9th – 18th.

The Kuala Lumpur Major brings together 16 teams from 6 different regions: Europe, North America, South America, CIS, Southeast Asia and China. For the first time ever, all of the spots are up for grabs and no direct invites are granted. Instead, every participant has to go through regional and possibly even open qualifiers in order to earn its place at the event.

Qualification points and prize pool distribution

The Kuala Lumpur Major has a prize pool of 1 million dollars and offers a total of 15.000 qualification points for The International 2019. So without a doubt, the battle for the top spots will be fierce.

The money and qualification points will be distributed among participating teams in the following way:

1st place: $350.000 / 4.950 points

2nd place: $170.000 / 3.000 points

3rd place: $100.000 / 2.100 points

4th place: $80.000 / 1.350 points

5th – 6th place: $60.000 / 900 points

7th – 8th place: $40.000 / 450 points

9th – 12th place: $15.000 / 150 points

13th – 16th place: $10.000 / 75 points

As you can see, unlike Dota Pro Circuit events of the past, The Kuala Lumpur Major offers qualification points to every single participant, as well as a hefty amount of money. This marks the beginning of a completely new philosophy and I’m convinced that it constitutes a huge improvement over the former system.

With its 16 teams – 10 competitive days – Group Stage + Playoffs – All teams get rewarded format, The Kuala Lumpur Major follows the structure of The International, which has arguably the best tournament format in esports.

Qualifiers

The qualifiers for The Kuala Lumpur Major are scheduled to take place between September 16th – 21st. Each of the 6 regions will get either 2 or 3 qualification spots. More specifically, this is how the distribution was done:

Europe: 3 spots.

North America: 3 spots.

China: 3 spots.

Southeast Asia: 2 spots.

CIS: 2 spots.

South America: 2 spots.

In addition to these 15 spots, there will be one more, granted to the winner of The Kuala Lumpur Major’s corresponding Minor, which takes place prior to it.

OG declined to participate

OG, the champions of The International 2018, declined to take part in The Kuala Lumpur Major’s European qualifier, citing fatigue after the most difficult and at the same time greatest event in the history of the team.

No doubt, this creates a favorable situation for the rest of European teams, who will rejoice at the though that they don’t have to face one of the strongest rosters in the world in order to qualify for the first Dota Pro Circuit Major of the new season. And since Team Liquid and Team Secret are almost guaranteed to take the first 2 spots in the European qualifier, the 3rd spot is entirely up for grabs, with at least 3 competitors fighting for it: Alliance, Shangri-La (ppd’s new squad) and Team Lithium (made up of 2 former Ad Finem players and several other Dota 2 veterans).